The Story of Springorchid Files

The Name’s Origin

Springorchid is made up of 2 words: Spring and Orchid. It is a straightforward translation of my Chinese name: 春兰.

Growing up, I was told that the meaning of my name is just some flowers in the springtime. A teacher once told me that it is a common practice for the uneducated to name children after natural objects and seasons. It is true that many domestic helpers in feudal China bear similar names.

Much later, I found out that 春兰 is the Chinese name of an orchid species known as Cymbidium goeringii. Confucius called it the Noble orchid.

It is a small plant, with small fragrant flowers. It grows on the ground in temperate regions like Japan, China and the Korean peninsula.

I don’t think my father knew about this association when he gave me my name. But it is nice to share my name with a beautiful fragrant orchid.

I thought it would be nice to use this to name my personal site. It also gave me an opportunity to mention the noble orchid.

“兰生幽谷，不为莫服而不芳”
—《淮南子·说山训第十六》
“The orchid in a secluded valley remains fragrant even when no one admires it.”
— Huainanzi (paraphrase)

From Mind to Page

This site started as a personal blog and learning project. Instead of storing stuff in my head, I thought I start a blog to store all sorts of seemingly useless information and learn to how to create content for the Internet.

The Memory Warehouse

A friend once commented that I seem to know a lot of things, like an encyclopedia. I think my mind is more like a memory warehouse in Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher [https://amzn.to/3RTlpfW] If you have not read it, I heartily recommend it. Although it is supposed to be a horror story, I didn’t find it that scary.

In the novel, there is a scene depicting how Jonesy, bodily possessed by an alien, locked himself in his memory warehouse. This warehouse represents the mind of Jonesy. He is trying to keep the alien out of his memories. Jonesy’s memory warehouse looks like a dilapidated library with a spiral ramp lined by shelves of books.

My mind could also be described as a library card catalogue. Rows and rows of wooden cabinets with brass handles and rods holding index cards bearing bibliographic information that points to the source of the information. 😉

Learning By Doing

I am a firm believer in experiential learning. I believed that I learnt more about the Internet, blogging and social media with this blogging project then only reading it up in theory. It takes a lot of time, but I think it is worth it and more fun.

So much have changed with the web and Internet since I started in 2006. I still remember having to write up the code for a table by hand. Now, with a click of the button, everything is done. Embedding images and videos has gotten easier too. Gone are the flashing gifs and flashing words.

Happy browsing!